Pages

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Hotmailed Not

The title on this post was added after this writing. I'll figure out what it will be when I see where this post takes me.

As usual, my posts take their own direction though usually have a very vague starting point and then let them wind and wander along. Some times I bore myself and those are the posts that rush to the ending so I can escape along with you.

A strange thing happened on my way to the post office. I do believe there is a phisher on my trail if not some worse. I'm not talking snail mail here but ye ole email.

About a week ago, I received an email from a nephew that I knew was in Florida with his mother and family on vacation. Suddenly this nephew who has never ever emailed me was suddenly Mr. Chatty. His emails spouted a few words and always enclosed a hyperlink to follow. I never opened any of those links. I was cautious and even though I know a lot of the people that email "stuff", I remain cautious. I seldom will open a link or download anything anyone sends me if I don't know the web site they are suggestinig.

The strange things about these emails were they were in reply to emails I had send. This nephew was able to reply to email that was never sent to him and on his emails back to me was a list of his friends.

I immediately changed my password. Then I went online to read. Apparently this is happening frequently and there is no cure. The hacker uses your email address to gather your contacts so they can send advertisement links. Curing this problem is impossible. Changing your password is a waste of time. It appears to be harmless but aggravating and some of the ads are of a personal nature.

As of the past two days, I haven't received anything new. Maybe there is a time limit?

I'll worry about this tomorrow. Today I have a goal to attain. I'll discuss that at a later date too! 


2 comments:

  1. I've experienced exactly the same. I receive the occasional email from someone on my contact list and it always contains a link. I pretty much know immediately that it isn't from the "real" person so it goes in to my junk box. However, the person whose email address has been hacked should be warned. I know of 2 people who this has happened to who subsequently had their bank details hacked into and money taken. They both recovered their losses from the bank after it was investigated...but i,t's a bloody nuisance isn't it?
    And I absolutely never click on links in an email unless I am 100% sure its OK...ie that I first check with the person who sent it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ayak...better be safe then..well..lose your hardrive to a big nasty virus...lol
    I'm cautious...the other person has been notified.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated to prevent spam posters. Leave a comment! It's nice to know you visited!